I want to try something. This is different today. It’s simple and easy. I’m going to share 10 words or phrases that are recent and often in my brain. Will you comment by sharing 10 of yours?
10 Words
beer and meat
Aaron and Megan
liberal
Freelance Whales
bloom
cloth diapers
lunch or coffee?
blessing
A Severe Mercy
risk
The way the world goes:
Others taking control,
stashing off loads of information,
constant internalling,
creating barbed-wire fences
against our own knowledge.
We are reminded today
that people and interfaces
impose what holidays we celebrate,
what colors we wear
just by their subtleties.
I forfeit my choice,
my reason
for a saintly mindset
to drink a pint
and share a laugh,
because I want
authentic attitudes.
The line grows grey
and even today green
with confusion
like the Savannah river front.
Instead,
I reflect on friends
and loved ones
who are worth
every raised glass,
without someone
telling me
I have to listen.
For I need not
some morning reminder
to know who I love,
who I celebrate.
It just is.
Last week was different for me than any other week of my life. I really was in a cubicle. I must leave by 6:40 to beat traffic in the morning and stay til about 4, get home by 5. This is my season of life now. This is my submission to get out of dept and find financial stability. This is my arrival as a mid-twenties single male in America. This is a blessing for now.
I take a break from droning
and remind myself
I am a poet.
The snow was like flurries this morning
leaving clean, clear dust
on the windows
the kind that nobody’s allergic to
I listen to Jonsi playing piano in the background. He’s there singing for anyone who is willing to listen. I’m chatting with a friend like decent media abiding citizens. She’s there. I think about the folks I met half way around the whole this past summer; young, energetic, and Chinese and there.
In a world so easily attainable, we grasp for connectivity as if we never had it. Send one more text and you will feel better. Right? Email one more idea and put it on the calendar. Grab one more beer and you’ll be satisfied. I remember playing four-square in elementary school. Chalk on the sidewalk. Those were the days. Simple, goal-oriented interactions. Why don’t I Facebook all of the third-graders I shared recess with? Well, that’d ruin it.
It saddens my heart that when I’m in certain circles, people flinch when I say community. The phrase apparently has been overused and over-attempted. It’s like a misunderstood curse word. Yet under-done. They’re missing it. The lab partner, the co-worker, the sister-in-law. The cab driver, the pastor, the professor.
Jonsi’s never going to play music in my living room. He’s never going to cry on my shoulder in the rain. The boys and girls from third-grade are scattered about, filling jobs, to pay the bills, to repeat the renewed cycle yet again. Those men and women from back then don’t yearn to know who I am. They aren’t here to comprehend Community.
But you are.
I want us all here, wrapped up in a creative bubble that doesn’t burst until she’s ready. It’s a thousand kisses passed out to the masses and retreated back in. The reality is, we’re all in the same bubble. You are running off to save lives, to sink in the syringe. You are writing the songs, pouring the drinks, pulling the shots. You are in my living room sharing your stories. We all want to listen.
It’s as if I’m always caught off guard
And the creeping up isn’t so much as scare.
I haven’t seen a ghost
And I try to be alert,
Maybe more like getting a return call
When I’m taking a nap.
I clear my throat,
Try to pull it together in a good couple of seconds
Before I say hello.
They always know.
And the leaves are turning golden
While I’m getting out of bed.
But while leaves always turn,
They always fall before too long.
So should my impressioned face
Upon a pillow slow me down
Or stop me from catching the cool.
The cedar door is open
Pulling in the harvest.
And the musk pervades my sense of smell
Causing me to turn and do something
About the best few weeks of the year.
When the sky is ne’r more blue.
I don’t just let my hair grow long and twirl it
Yeah, it’s funny, but it’s truth.
God, I want to live
And move like the wind.
If I had the season in my hands,
I’d have to say good bye
For it’s too strong
Too persistently onward and uncontainable.
Please, Autumn, where is my humiliation?
Show me little.
That’s what I need.
That’s what we all need.
And maybe you could contain me,
Along with the fruit of the harvest,
You see worth to keep in my broken being.
I might find peace behind the old cedar doors
If you just hold on to me.
Would you just hold on to me?
I’ve been waiting for you
at every corner,
through every outside door
and into night,
there I hope you’ll be.
And I vaguely remember
your subtleties,
your brisk cool,
your calm thoughtful moving motion.
You bring time’s elapsing moments
and the slowness of aging realization.
Future comes through the same
outside doors you own.
When I focus,
I see the decaying notion of
life in true perspective;
Falling.
Isn’t that what I’m doing anyways?
Falling in and out of time and season.
I am always dying and being reborn.
You help me see clearly,
like the city shedding leaves,
learning her bareness
before beaconing towards light yet again.
The wind will rustle.
Age will come,
and color will transcend.
And I’ve been waiting for you
in my burnt skin.
I need a layer of your truth once more
to see life as it is;
Bare and rustic
with fullness
even as time continues to tick me forward.
I’m better off clothed in your coldness
than baking in the sun.
Autumn, Send your harvest love.
Show me who I am.
Carry me with your fallen leaves.
And when you’re surrounding me,
when you’re all around me,
when you hold me in your brown and gold hands,
may the harvest come,
and I know I’ll be home once again.
A poem from the airline:
Is that the roar of a city I know?
like a lion or phoenix at the end
of their road?
But as I gain closure and move closer,
she regains her youth
and time hands over some back
and I think I might remember.
Yes. her beacon stands,
her fire glows
and the river flows with
that same red youth,
a passionate folk for hope.
And they have their laugh.
I can hear it.
like the child I remember in the summer lawn
rolling around next door.
Yes. This is home calling, as I fly in
over the horizon, and I know her well.
This is where I was born
and reborn with new life and new learning.
I hope they haven’t forgotten my name.
And I hope there’s a place for me behind the counter
and a place for me to rest my weary head.
I hope they remember me, because
I haven’t forgotten them.